But horse-exercise was the only masculine pastime he was very fond of. He was very temperate in his habits; and although Irish gentlemen _used_ to get tipsy, he never did. Painting, music, and the society of a few really superior women, were the principal sources of enjoyment to which this brilliant charlatan had recourse in his leisure hours. Many were the ladies of rank and girls of gentle houses who would have gladly linked their fortunes to him and his ten thousand a year.[20] But though numerous matrimonial overtures were made to him, he persevered in his bachelor style of life; and although he was received with peculiar intimacy into the privacy of female society, scandal never even charged him with a want of honour or delicacy towards women, apart from his quackery. Indeed, he broke off his professional connection with one notorious lady of rank, rather than gratify her eccentric wish to have her likeness taken by him in that remarkable costume--or no costume at all--in which she was wont to receive her visitors. [20] A writer in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1843 observes:--"In England, after Sir Astley, whose superiority of mind or dexterity of hand stood uncontested, another practitioner in that category of the Faculty of which it has been said, 'Periculis nostris, et experimenta per mortes agunt medici,' the once famous St John Long was, I believe, the most largely requited. I had some previous knowledge of him, and in 1830 he showed me his pass-book with his bankers, Sir Claude Scott and Co., displaying a series of credits from July, 1829, to July, 1830, or a single year's operations, to the extent of £13,400, But the delusion soon vanished. One act of liberality on his part at that period, however, I think it fair to record. To a gentleman who had rendered him some literary aid, which his defective education made indispensable, he presented double, not only what he was assured would be an ample remuneration, but what exceeded fourfold the sum his friend would have been satisfied with, or had expected." In the exercise of his art he treated women unscrupulously. Amidst the crowd of ladies who thronged his reception-rooms he moved, smiling, courteous, and watchful, listening to their mutual confidences about their maladies, the constitutions of their relations, and their family interests. Every stray sentence the wily man caught up and retained in his memory, for future use. To induce those to become his patients who had nothing the matter with them, and consequently would go to swell the list of his successful cases, he used the most atrocious artifices. "Ah, Lady Emily, I saw your dear sister," he would say to a patient, "yesterday--driving in the Park--lovely creature she is! Ah, poor thing!" "Poor thing, Mr. Long!--why, Catherine is the picture of health!"